(Newser)
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A 65-year-old Louisiana man arrested at 19 and sentenced to life without parole walked out of prison Wednesday, saying "God is so good" after his rape conviction was overturned. Authorities withheld evidence that could have exonerated Wilbert Jones decades ago, and their case against him was "weak at best," State District Judge Richard Anderson said, per the AP. "Freedom. After more than 45 years and 10 months," Jones said as he hugged relatives outside the gates of the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison. He also thanked his legal team at the Innocence Project New Orleans. Jones was arrested on suspicion of abducting a nurse at gunpoint from a Baton Rouge hospital parking lot and raping her behind a building in October 1971. He was convicted of aggravated rape at a 1974 retrial that "rested entirely" on the nurse's testimony and her "questionable identification" of Jones as her assailant.

Jones' lawyers claim the nurse's description matches a man arrested but never charged in the rapes of two other women, one just 27 days after the nurse's attack. Anderson said the evidence shows cops knew of similarities between that man and the nurse's description of her attacker but failed to give that information to the defense. Jones' attorneys also said a prosecutor who secured his conviction had a track record of withholding evidence favorable to defendants. The husband of the nurse, who died in 2008, "feels that Mr. Jones ... should be able to get out and spend his remaining years with his family," his lawyers wrote. Prosecutors say they don't intend to retry Jones, but they'll ask the state Supreme Court to review the decision. Jones told reporters he holds no resentment. "I forgave. I forgive," he said. "I didn't have control of it. Why should I worry about it? I'm in charge of myself."

I hope his civil law suites clean the bank accounts out of everybody that participated in this fraud.

iq145

Nov 16, 2017 8:57 PM CST

i've always said, wrongful conviction should equal one million dollars per year!

Rkk O'Tilley

Nov 16, 2017 8:29 PM CST

That is so mest up...no amount of monetary compensation could rectify the wrong done to this man...thank god for dna evidence now...be kinda hard to do this to anyone else...now . I pray that all who knew this man was innocent , dies a long slow painful death and think that it will last 45 yrs...gd bastids